The problem of disposing of used fluorescent light ballast assemblies has plagued commercial and other institutions for some years, particularly in view of relatively recent state and federal regulations governing perpetual legal responsibility for their disposal and the environmental safety of the waste products of such disposal.
The concomitant problem of enabling conservation or salvaging of those valuable components and materials not presenting hazard difficulties by reclamation and reuse, refurbishing and/or recycling of the valuable materials therein (metals, wires and windings, plastics, etc.) often must be ignored in the light of this perpetual environmental safety responsibility, leading to expensive incineration or other blanket waste of the total products as in land fill, etc., just because hazards may exist only in limited parts thereof.
It is just such a circumstance that exists with used fluorescent light ballasts containing potted assemblies of electrical components and the like embedded in the potting and wherein only a very small weight or volume percentage of the product may involve highly environmentally hazardous materials; the remainder or bulk of the product, however, being admirably suited for valuable reclamation and/or recycling, leading none-the-less to the current-day practice of wasting the whole opportunity for such reclamation and/or recycling in incinerating or breaking up and/or burying the complete product just because, for example, the capacitor component thereof may contain the before-mentioned hazardous pcb's or the like.